I’m a Dr. Jennifer Roback Morse fan. The article says it: people either find her plucky or abrasive. I find her plucky–what’s more, she is kind-hearted and treats everyone with respect. So I’m not sure how the abrasive thing happens.

Read more about the life of Dr. J here.

A portion of it:

Without strong families, you can’t have free markets or limited government. Instead, you get ‘The Life of Julia.’” This is a reference to a slide-show advertisement from President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign that treated a fictitious woman’s cradle-to-grave dependence on government as a triumph of progressivism.

and my favourite quote:

Is it really so hard to say that children are entitled to parents? This is the birthright of every child, not an impossible dream.” She pauses, then concludes: “When nothing is politically possible, you don’t need to trim sails. You can just tell the truth.”

Great article, with all the problems listed in one place.

Whether you are progressive or conservative, feminist or pro-life, straight or gay, surrogacy is not the answer.

Jennifer Roback Morse of the Ruth Institute http://www.ruthinstitute.org/

Articles like these do not reflect my sentiment as a pro-life woman. Being pro-life/anti-abortion/whatever-you-want-to-call-it reflects a genuinely pro-woman sentiment, not some rebranding so that my message can be more tenable. Ours is the novel idea that women ought to be accepted in all their reproductive capacities. Certainly my view also partners with the humanity of the preborn–we are not aborting cucumbers, after all–to suggest that there is something of value, a fetus, which is the result (in many instances) of a natural thing called sex. These are facts on the ground that we need to recognize.

The author also adds that pro-life folks lost the battle long ago. I’d argue the presence of his column is evidence that the pro-choice victory has not been complete. In order for a complete pro-choice victory to occur, we would have to wipe out all joy at the prospect of a wanted child being born. When that happens, women might feel entirely unconflicted about the act of abortion.

However, since that won’t happen, we will muddle through with pro-lifers and pro-choicers alike muttering about the matter. It’s just not going to go away quietly into the realm of non-controversial.

This is apparently a gaffe. From Hillary Clinton, this time. I have a hard time registering it as such. It just goes to show you that this issue of abortion is not settled. It is impossible to make every living soul use the term “fetus” in every instance, instead of person or child.

“The unborn person doesn’t have constitutional rights,” Mrs. Clinton said on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Now that doesn’t mean that we don’t do everything we possibly can in the vast majority of instances to, you know, help a mother who is carrying a child and wants to make sure that child will be healthy, to have appropriate medical support.”

CBC’s Carol Off interviewed a Brazilian abortion activist who is using the onset of the Zika virus to promote abortion in Brazil. You can listen to the interview here.

Some thoughts:

These are wanted children, presumably. In the contested science of psychological effects for women after abortion, there is an area of agreement and it’s this: aborting a wanted baby leaves women at greater risk for later problems.

Secondly, many women might be right to wonder why there isn’t an all out attack on fixing the virus, finding a cure, finding a vaccine and controlling the spread by controlling mosquitoes. Even the abortion activist alludes to this as a problem in the interview.

Finally, it’s only where you are not thinking of babies that abortion can be a solution. You’ll notice the interview starts with reference to the “fetus” and ends with reference to the “baby.”

Carol Off’s last question is about whether abortion is even an effective solution since microcephaly is only diagnosed later in pregnancy.

According to the CDC “Microcephaly is most easily diagnosed by ultrasound late in the 2nd trimester or early in the third trimester of pregnancy.”

I’m against abortion, so it’s pretty clear where I stand on abortion as a solution to anything. But even if you are not against abortion in principle, second or early third trimester means women have been pregnant for many weeks, are bonded with their babies–furthermore, their babies look like babies, very clearly.

So I believe that advocating for legal abortion in response to the Zika virus gets an epic fail on the feminist front regardless of whether you are against abortion or not.